This links with my other comments, etc, re the four ITV works inspired by Jill Murphy's Worst Witch novels. This TV series is the second and was my favourite.
Worst Witch v Harry Potter: I got to the point in the Harry Potter series where I had to accept that they were no longer about what had first attracted me to them. For a while I still found Harry Potter interesting, but it was about something other. By 2010 I still occasionally re-read the novels, but only re-watched the first two features and now I find that Blu-ray makes those even better.
Getting the DVD sets of the Worst Witch series and its sequels, they are nothing like early Harry Potter, but a lot of the fascination was not so different. I had to rate this as special. For my earliest versions of this review I used a heading: Tempting to rate this as 10 of 10 plus a spoiler hazard.
At 2012 it is Zoey 101 and iCarly that I rate as the ultimate. Characterisation is the real difficulty for me and the early episodes of iCarly have that difficulty, too. I find that a lot of stories from England have people with gritty personalities to an extent that gets in the way of the stories, for me. The Worse Witch novels by Jill Murphy are a pleasant exception to that, be they stories for seven year olds. I find the Harry Potter novels to be mild re that aspect. To access the elements of the Worse Witch TV series that I like, and I find that there is lots that I can like, I need to shrug off some aspects and I do have a lot of experience in shrugging off some aspects of fiction.
By 2012 I find some aspects of the New Worst Witch series to be even better than this 1998, just the characterisation aspect is an even bigger problem. On balance I still prefer this 1998.
Worst Witch v Harry Potter: I got to the point in the Harry Potter series where I had to accept that they were no longer about what had first attracted me to them. For a while I still found Harry Potter interesting, but it was about something other. By 2010 I still occasionally re-read the novels, but only re-watched the first two features and now I find that Blu-ray makes those even better.
Getting the DVD sets of the Worst Witch series and its sequels, they are nothing like early Harry Potter, but a lot of the fascination was not so different. I had to rate this as special. For my earliest versions of this review I used a heading: Tempting to rate this as 10 of 10 plus a spoiler hazard.
At 2012 it is Zoey 101 and iCarly that I rate as the ultimate. Characterisation is the real difficulty for me and the early episodes of iCarly have that difficulty, too. I find that a lot of stories from England have people with gritty personalities to an extent that gets in the way of the stories, for me. The Worse Witch novels by Jill Murphy are a pleasant exception to that, be they stories for seven year olds. I find the Harry Potter novels to be mild re that aspect. To access the elements of the Worse Witch TV series that I like, and I find that there is lots that I can like, I need to shrug off some aspects and I do have a lot of experience in shrugging off some aspects of fiction.
By 2012 I find some aspects of the New Worst Witch series to be even better than this 1998, just the characterisation aspect is an even bigger problem. On balance I still prefer this 1998.